Divine Fortune Gold

Divine Fortune Gold: Slot Overview

Some slots are designed to blast gamblers into the future, dazzling them with cutting-edge new features, ludicrous themes, and mind-melting winning potential. Others prefer to look the other way, to gently pull players back into the past, remind them of the good old days, and deliver hearty features they've been able to count on over the years. It's the latter we're dealing with in NetEnt's slot Divine Fortune Gold, an anachronistic release that clings to its progressive jackpot roots, while serving up several hold 'n' win bonus games on the side.

Divine Fortune Gold feels like a slot that was released a while ago, and a contributor to this impression is its classical appearance. Dimly lit around the borders, it sort of mixes the dark look of the earlier games with the shinier skin of Divine Fortune Megaways, settling on a chic middle ground between the two. A lion wrestles with a snake on the left-hand side, pots line the right, and pillars flank a crimson-hued set of reels. It should warm the hearts of players who enjoyed previous releases in the range, and the jackpots, including a progressive, are here, a key aspect of the original Divine Fortune of yore.

After a dalliance with Megaways, Divine Fortune Gold is on classical slot ground operating on a 5x3, 10 payline gaming area. Bet range, in the demo at least, is wide, ranging from a min of $/€0.10 to a max of $/€1,000 per game round. NetEnt has turned the volatility down to low, and of the various possible RTPs, 96.73%-96.95% is the highest, which isn't bad at all for a progressive jackpot slot, or any slot, really.

The paytable contains J-A card ranks, birds, bulls, lions, and Medusa symbols. Landing 5 matching royals pays 2x the bet, while a combination of 5 matching high pays awards 4x to 10x the stake. Wilds are present on each reel. When a wild hits, it expands to cover all positions on its reel, substituting for all regular paying symbols. A line of five wilds pays 50x the bet.

Divine Fortune Gold: Slot Features

The features available in Divine Fortune Gold are Cash Prize collection, Bonus Spins, jackpot prizes, and feature buys.

Cash Prize Collection

Bronze, silver, and gold Cash Prizes may land anywhere, bearing values of 0.5x to 20x the bet. The Fortune Collector symbols may appear on the leftmost and rightmost reels. When one or more land, each one of them collects the values from any Cash Prizes in view.

Bonus Spins

In the main game, it is possible to trigger Bronze Spins, Silver Spins, or Gold Spins. All modes trigger a hold & win round on a 5x5 play area where only Cash Prizes may land. When a Cash Prize lands, it sticks in place and resets the spin count to 3. Any Cash Prizes in the main game which activate bonus spins are carried over. In the main game, hitting 6 Cash Prizes of any kind triggers one of the bonus spins rounds. Or, when hitting any Cash Prize symbol, the corresponding bonus spins feature may activate.

• Bronze Spins: At the end of this feature, the value of each Cash Prize is doubled.
• Silver Spins: At the end of the round, all Cash Prizes on the reels are upgraded to the next tier in order of bronze, silver, gold, and mystery. Each mystery symbol reveals a Fortune Collector, Adder or Restart, which activate in this order. Fortune Collectors collect all Cash Prizes, then become a gold Cash Prize with the total value. Adders add 3x-50x to 3-10 Cash Prizes, then become a gold Cash Prize worth 3x-50x. Restart reactivates the same Bonus Spins mode and becomes a gold Cash Prize worth 10x. All Cash Prizes remain on the reels for the restarted round. Restarts can only appear once per game round, and no upgrade, Adder, or Fortune Collector may appear at the end of restarted Bonus Spins.
• Gold Spins: At the end of this feature, the Silver Spins bonus effect is applied, followed by the Bronze Spins bonus effect.

Jackpot Prize

At the end of any Bonus Spins feature, if one or more rows are completely filled, an extra prize is awarded. Players win the Mini (15x), Midi (50x), Maxi (100x), Major (250x), or Mega (progressive jackpot) when 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 rows are filled.

Elevate Feature Buys

Certain features can be bought from the Elevate menu. For 1.5x the bet, the Bonus Hunt increases the chance of triggering Bonus Spins. From there, players can buy Bronze Spins, Silver Spins, or Gold Spins for 50x, 150x, or 300x the stake, respectively.

Divine Fortune Gold: Slot Verdict

NetEnt's return to the mythical world of Divine Fortune Gold feels like a nostalgic courting of fans of the 2017 release. On one hand, it successfully revives the spirit of the original Divine Fortune experience, bringing back the progressive jackpot structure that made the series popular in the first place. It's not all a denial of modernity and living in a windmill, though, for on the other hand, it attempts to modernise the formula with tiered bonus rounds, where if you're lucky, they stack their effects on top of each other. Still, this isn't exactly high-tech stuff, so players who enjoy fairly basic hold & win-style features won't find anything confusingly complex here to scare them off.

Certainly not in the base game, which grinds on with the help of line and Coin wins interspersed amongst the no-value spins. 10 paylines is by no means Megaways, so winning combinations aren't hugely exciting, though expanding wilds add a dose of suspense. As do Coins themselves, even when their values aren't collected, since they are the gateway into the three bonus features. Hitting six of them will guarantee a bonus trigger, otherwise they trigger at random. The bonus rounds were more interesting than first suspected, or feared. Well, not Bronze Spins since they just land and award prizes, though the doubling effect is nice. Gold is where it's at, since you get the Silver treatment, then Bronze, which might turn out to be alright.

Then again, maybe not, since the most you can win while playing Divine Fortune Gold (outside the progressive jackpot) is 1,000x the bet, which is a figure that deflates much of the excitement. As such, it might be best to treat Divine Fortune Gold strictly as a progressive jackpot chase, and it may be a match with players who enjoyed the original title, though the low win cap weakens the rest of what the game has to offer.